BURLINGTON, Vt., Sept. 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Recently, ZestBloom, Inc. has announced the launch of their NFT marketplace on the Algorand blockchain after recently receiving a grant from the Algorand Foundation. Their marketplace plans to feature solutions to the environmental impacts, cost, and security concerns of Ethereum-based marketplaces. ZestBloom is also partnered with Project Ark (project-ark.co) using NFT sales to help fund animal and ecological conservation efforts globally. Algorand offers the best Layer 1 solution for NFT trading with transaction fees at ~$0.001 USD, no forking, a minimal carbon footprint, and a complete smart contract language.
Most artists and collectors have remained wary of NFTs due to its “wild west” perception. NFT participation is critically constrained by high gas fees, a lack of security, little intrinsic value, and limited search capabilities on the Ethereum blockchain. Even Coinbase cofounder Fred Ehrsam admitted during a recent interview “90% of NFTs produced … probably will have little to no value in three to five years”. Those familiar with the space see the same Twitter threads on repeat and the same exclusive group of projects receiving a disproportionate share of the sales. The success of PfP NFTs like 10,000 apes has spurred many copycat projects that are simply trying to capitalize on the trend. The NFT market is quickly being cluttered with repetitious content with little-to-no means of organizing and searching the blockchain for NFTs based on their content. “Featured” and “New” lists are not useful to most collectors and primarily serve an exclusive group of established creators. These systemic constraints put the onus of promotion on artists who are easily drowned out by automated accounts and paid promotion.
ZestBloom will offer a suite of solutions to give artists more control and fewer responsibilities:
- Authentication: Every NFT managed by ZestBloom will come with a content-based digital signature that prevents others from stealing any part of the work. Their nodes constantly index the Algorand blockchain looking for misuse and copycats, which are robustly detected even if only a small section of the work is stolen. Giving original creators more control directly reduces opportunities for low effort content. Cleaning out copycats concentrates attention and bids on only original content.
- Search: Most NFT marketplaces exist independently and have no incentive to list works on other sites, except for aggregators like OpenSea. However, these aggregators are cluttered and difficult to search because they only use broad categories (art, music, etc.) and only the title/description terms are indexed. Content-based image search will allow users to navigate similar images by content. It is much like modern image search engines. ZestBloom brings all of the functionalities of Web2 search into the Web3 metaverse.
- Royalties, collaborations, and resales: Any royalty and resale system requires an enforcement mechanism to prevent attempts to bypass fees or siphon rewards from original artists. Currently, NFTs can be stolen, trivially edited and re-uploaded with a different description and title, and appear in different collectors’ search results to siphon bids. Furthermore, bad actors can fake bids on these pirated works to confuse real collectors into purchasing derivative works. With content-based authentication and search, ZestBloom enables enforceable protection of creators and safe collaboration.
- Fractionalization: Auctions limit liquidity for artists and price out the average collector for high quality art. Fractionalized NFTs (fNFTs) significantly lower the barrier to entry for the masses. High gas fees on Ethereum significantly decrease the utility of fractionalization because the fees will cost more than or most of the fNFT. Because transaction fees on Algorand are negligible, fractions can trade cost-effectively for pennies. Artists often don’t know how to price their work and an ambitious reserve price may result in no bids at all. Fractionalization offers an alternative sales model with more accessible prices. Thus, having multiple owners of one NFT also reduces risk for the artist because it increases the likelihood of return with more potential buyers.
ZestBloom’s marketplace launches as an open-beta in mid-September with collaborative smart contracts from up to 5 creators at once, royalties and resales, and basic auction/bidding functions. Their decentralized content authentication and fractionalization are the next highest priority and planned to launch in early 2022. ZestBloom aims to directly represent artists and their works, requiring as little effort on the creators and collectors as possible. Rather than copying the expensive and exclusive marketplaces on Ethereum, ZestBloom is continuing to advance NFT technology by adding intrinsic value to Algorand’s NFT ecosystem.
Social Links
Twitter: @Zestbloom
Instagram: @Zestbloom.io
Media Contact
Company: ZestBloom, Inc.
Contact: Jasmine Farrell
Telephone: 949-226-2292
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://www.zestbloom.io
